My
primary academic
interests are in the area of law and economics --
specifically the use of Austrian
economics and public choice to understand law, politics, and government.

My goal
in maintaining this page is to make online materials (chiefly in
the
classical liberaltradition) easily accessible for my students (past, present and
future) and for other interested persons.
I have recently tuned-up and redesigned this page, with the
goal of making it more timely and easier to use -- and thus more
inviting to readers.
The new material begins with Part I, a blogroll. If a blogger makes
his or her
homepage clearly available on the blog, he/she does not appear in Part
II -- which lists individuals' websites that are content-heavy
in the areas indicated.
Part III is devoted to scholars whose work has significantly influenced
my own thinking and who have died during my professional career.
(Judge Bork is the only person listed here I had the good fortune to
have as a
classroom teacher.)
Part IV offers a set of podcast and video sites in aid of those of you
seeking
to self-educate.
Part V links online law journals, Part VI, more journals and magazines, and Part VII collects basic reference sites .
Part VIII is labeled the "Stacks
Area" and contains most of the
earlier version of this page. It is largely devoted to
online books and articles in law, economics, politics and
government. Part VIII contains its own sub-index. There is still some duplication between the Stacks Area and
Parts I-VII.

Over the years this page has sprouted a number of branch
lists.
I link to most of them in due course, below. A couple seem worth
mentioning at the outset:
The links page for my classes is here.
My list of Literary Websites is here;
My list of other Diversions is
here.

On August 1, 2014, I became the (part-time) Associate Director of the Center for College Affordability & Productivity, or "CCAP."
The brainchild of economist Richard Vedder, CCAP studies the
rapidly changing world of higher education and publishes the
results of its research, and is also responsible for Forbes Magazine's annual college rankings issue. I am posting on a fairly regular basis on its blog. Check it out!

Coursera
over 200 courses from top universities, free -- this could be the face
of the future of higher education edX free
courses from MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, and Texas MIT
Open Course Ware
home page -- MIT's "bold initiative to make nearly all of its course
materials
available free on the World Wide Web."
Other Open Course Ware websitesStanford on
iTunes "targeted
primarily at alumni . . . includes Stanford faculty lectures, learning
materials, music, sports, and more"
Carnegie Mellon Open
Learning InitiativeOpen Yale Courses
"online video lectures and course materials"

VIII. THESTACKS
-- containing most of the earlier
version of
this pageTable of Contents
A. Economics -- A1 The Basics; A2 The Next
Level; A3 History of Economic Thought; A4 Economic & Business
History; A5 Econnomic Growth/International Economics/Free Trade; A6
Statistics; A7 Game Theory/Experiemental Economics
B. Economic Analysis of Law
C. Public Choice
D. Austrian EconomicsE. The 20th Century: Freedom and Its EnemiesF. The American Founding / American HistoryG. American Legal System (Current)H. Western Civ / English Legal History I. Legal Philosophy / General
PhilosophyJ. "Great Books" and Other Literary / General
Reference Works

A. ECONOMICS

I think economics, like philosophy, cannot be
taught
to nineteen-year olds. It is an old man's
field. Nineteen-year olds are, most of them,
romantics, capable of memorizing and emoting, but
not capable of thinking coldly in the
cost-and-benefit
way. . . . A nineteen-year old has
intimations of immortality, comes directly from
a socialized economy (called a family), and has no
feel on his pulse for those tragedies of adult life
that economists call scarcity and choice.
-- Donald McCloskey
(1992)

The Mercatus Center at George Mason
University
focuses its publications
efforts on helping "policy makers, and others involved in
the
policy process, make more effective decisions by incorporating insights
from sound, interdisciplinary research – with an emphasis on the role
of 'institutions' in promoting prosperity." Particularly
recommended:
Liberalism
and Cronyism: Two Rival Political and Economic Systems, by Randall
Holcombe & Andrea Castillo, and The
Role of Property Rights as an Institution by Karol Boudreaux.

Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the
Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade, Cambridge
U. Press. and on
his website. William Bernstein, The
Birth of Plenty (2004), site includes exerpts
from the preface and introduction, and the whole of chapter one

The same persons who cry down Logic will
generally
warn you against Political Economy. It is
unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognises
unpleasant facts. For my part, the most unfeeling thing
I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the
neck of the best and most amiable person without
scruple, if he forgets for a single moment to give
heed to it. The winds and waves too are very
unfeeling. Would you advise those who go to
sea to deny then winds and waves -- or to make
use of them, and find the means of guarding against
their dangers? My advice to you is to study
the great writers on Political Economy, and hold
firmly by whatever in them you find true; and
depend on it that if you are not selfish or
hard-hearted
already, Political Economy will not make
you so.
-- John
Stuart
Mill (1867)

George
Mason U. law & economics center International Center for Law & EconomicsCenter for
Empirical Research in the Law at Washington U., St. Louis Harvard
Law School's Olin Center for Law, Economics & Business working
papers archive includes
dozens of papers
of interest in PDF format, including
# 340. Steven Shavell, "Law versus Morality as Regulators of
Conduct"
(Nov. 2001)
# 342. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, "Moral Rules and Moral
Sentiments: Toward a
Theory of an Optimal Moral System" (Nov. 2001)
# 277. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, "Principles of Fairness
versus Human Welfare:
On the Evaluation of Legal Policy" (February 2000)
# 283. Steven Shavell, "Economic Analysis of Law" (June 2000) --
a survey article for
the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
(2001)
U. of Chicago Coase-Sandor Institute for
Law & Economics Working Papers includes numerous
papers
of interest in PDF, including
#92. Eric Posner, "Agency Models in Law & Economics" (January
2000)
#53. Richard Posner, "Values and Consequences: An Introduction to
Economic
Analysis of Law" (March 1998)
#49. Richard Epstein, "Contract Law Through the Lens of
Laissez-Faire"
#38. Richard Epstein, "Transaction Costs and Property Rights --
Or,
Do Good Fences
Make Good Neighbors?"
#33. Richard Craswell, "Freedom of Contract" (August 1995)
#22. Randal Picker, "An Introduction to Game Theory and the
Law"
(June 1994) (see also materials on game theory in Section VIII.A.7,
above)
#20. Alan Sykes, "An Introduction to Regression Analysis"
(October
1993) (see also materials on statistics in Section VIII.A.6, above)
Ditto the Working Paper Series of the Becker-Friedman Institute
for Research in Economics at Chicago.
Ditto the U. of Chicago Booth School of Business "Selected
Papers" and "Capital
Ideas" websites which offer PDF versions of classic articles by
Chicago
economists.

Encyclopedia
of Law and Economics entries for
The Coase Theorem (#730, Medema)
Transaction Costs (#740, Allen)
Public Choice, Constitutional Political Economy, and Law & Econ
(#610,
Van den Hauwe)

Robert Hahn, In
Defense of the Economic Analysis of Regulation (AEI,
2004)
More on regulation and administrative law in
section B of my course
links page

Richard
Posner's homepage. The Becker-Posner Blog (2004-2014) He was interviewed by Reason
magazine in April 2001. In 2002, Posner allowed a week's
worth of his diary entries to be published on Slate; the Friday installment includes links to the other
4 days of that week. Several video clips of a more recent interview
of Judge Posner are available on Big
Think.
Project
Posner is a searchable database of hundreds of Judge Posner's
opinions, from 1981 to 2006.
In 2007 both the University
of Chicago Law Review and the Harvard
Law Review published special issues celebrating Posner's 25th
anniversary
on the bench, with many of the authors focusing on a single Posner
opinion
each.

In our age there is no
such
thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues,
and politics itself is a
mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. . . .
Political
language . . . is designed
to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to
give an appearance of
solidity
to pure wind.
-- George
Orwell (1946)

The U.S. government is a
sort of permanent frat pledge to every special interest in the
nation -- willing to
undertake
any task no matter how absurd or useless. . . . Politics
would not exist if it
weren't
for special interests. If the effect of government were always
the same on everyone and
if no one stood to lose or gain anything from government
except what his fellows
did, there would be little need for debate and no need for
coalitions, parties or
intrigue.
. . . The whole idea of our government is this: If enough
people get together and
act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
-- P.J.
O'Rourke
(1991)

The great and chief end of men uniting into
commonwealths,
and putting themselves under
government, is the preservation of their property.
-- John
Locke (1690)

The Dane never showed up but they had the
"seminar"
anyway, under some shade trees
in a place called the French Park. Jay Bomarr
opened it with his famous speech, "Come
Dream Along with Me." I had heard it myself,
at Ole Miss of all places, back in the days
when Jay was drawing big crowds. It was a
dream of blood and smashed faces, with a
lot of talk about "the people," whose historic duty
it was to become a nameless herd and
submit their lives to the absolute control of a
small pack of wily and vicious intellectuals.
-- Charles
Portis,
"The Dog of the
South" (1979)

And you may ask yourself
-- Well . . . How did I get here?
-- David Byrne (Talking Heads, 1980), "Once
in a Lifetime" (video)

The characteristic danger
of great nations, like the Romans and the English, which have a
long history of continuous
creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending
the great institutions that
they have created.
-- Walter
Bagehot (1832)

Clegg & DeBow, Conservative
and Libertarian Pre-Law Reading List (for the Federalist Society)
Clegg & DeBow, Pre-law
prerequisities: A guide to the post-socialist world (Policy
Review,
1994)
John McGinnis, Impeachable
Defenses (1999) -- Excellent article discussing, among other
things,
the dominant ideology among law professors and in the law
schools.

I don't think we're
saying
anything new here. I think we're just saying the things that
need to be said again and again,
with fierce conviction.
-- Astronaut "Deke" Slayton character in film version
of Tom Wolfe's "The Right
Stuff"